pukka sahib

plural pukka sahibs

1. informalA person of excellent character.

   'You can take it from me that she's all right. She's a pukka sahib.'

   1934, Agatha Christie, chapter 8, in Murder on the Orient Express, London: HarperCollins, published 2017, page 135

   2 more examples

   'Why iss it that always you are abusing the pukka sahibs, as you call them?'

   1934, George Orwell, chapter 3, in Burmese Days, London: Penguin Books, published 1967, page 36

   His (Lee Kuan Yew) first visit to Sri Lanka coincided with the victory of Bandaranaike’s (S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike) newly created Sri Lanka Freedom Party, he calls him a dapper little man, well dressed, articulate and a ‘Pukka Sahib’ a term invented by the British to call the inhabitants of their colonies who followed their ways.

   2022 April 22, Hasala Perera, “Sri Lanka in Lee Kuan Yew’s words”, in The Island (Sri Lanka)